


Seconds

by Valya (grandSolovey)



Category: In Time (2011)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-09
Updated: 2012-04-09
Packaged: 2017-11-03 08:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/379193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grandSolovey/pseuds/Valya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As he makes his way out of Dayton, whether he likes it or not, the Timekeeper has the time to reflect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seconds

One step, another, one foot in front of the other. Tick one, tock two, tick three, each second counting down in time with a thud of pain lancing down through his arm. One hour, two minutes, thirty-nine seconds, thirty-eight, thirty-seven…

If he’d learned anything in the fifty years he’d been keeping time, it was that there was nothing to be gained in keeping his own seconds on his mind. Minding the clock had been a fact of life in the ghetto, a necessity born of too little time to mind anything else, but it would not serve the Timekeeper. There was nothing to be gained in fretting over each minute and second lost, nor where the next would be earned. There was no reason to let those worries weigh upon the mind of the Timekeeper. No reason at all.

One hour, fifty-two seconds, fifty one, fifty…

All that would serve the Timekeeper was to keep him looking forward, to keep his mind and eyes focused to their task. No use would lie in thinking even for a moment on the seconds of the past. No use at all.

Forty-three, forty-two…

_“Hey Timekeeper, what’s the hurry?”_

Unless, of course, those seconds should have run out long ago.

Thirty-six…

It would have been his own fault on a number of counts, he knows. If only he’d refilled his time a bit later; if only he’d moved in a bit more swiftly; if only he’d taken the shot a bit sooner; if only he’d paid a bit more attention to the Weis girl, and if only she’d been a bit less of a damn crack shot. If only, if only…

With each _if only_ , another second falls. There is no use, no reason, no time to waste on each passed second, none at all.

_“Stay a while! You might like us if you got to know us!”_

Fifty-nine minutes, twenty-nine seconds. The crowd gathers and jeers, not a single one of them minding their time. He only gives them a tight, grim smile in return; to do anything more would be inviting death upon himself, a swift death of no use or reason. How little all his passed seconds would amount to in the wake of such a death here.

How much more worth, then, has Will Salas given him?

He pushes past two more of them, laughing at him, feeling fresh spikes of pain burst from his shoulder and thrum down the length of his arm. Tick one, tock two. _“Why don't you stay a while, man?”_ They’ll all get their due, every last one of them. He has no reason to be alive right now. His fifty years of service and twenty-five before that would have been wasted in this ghetto, if not for the generosity of a thief named Will Salas.

One foot in front of the other, fifty-eight minutes, fifty-four seconds, fifty-three, fifty-two. All he needs to do is look forward, just keep looking forward, keep his eyes and mind focused on the day in which Will Salas is a dead man.


End file.
